MIDDLE SCHOOL RESPONSES

The day is February 14th, supposedly the day where love “blooms” and affection is shown to family members, friends, and apparent strangers. You leave the car, with a bag of candies, a kiss blown from your mother, and an overwhelming throbbing sensation of satisfaction and joy on this blissful day. Normally, all periods are set besides you and your discomfort is not present when the bell rings for the next period of the school day like usual days. It all comes down at lunch, where friends reunite and you feel yourself in a haven, fulfilled with pathway as clear as ice. Grams, love, and other fundamental items are released and everything seems as ordinary & calm as any other school day. You’re commanded to go to your last period of the day, expecting everything to go as planned and return home just has you did earlier.

But, when the time 2:35 strikes, your world turns upside down. The sudden panic releases on yourself, and the loud murmuring of your peers begins to deepen in tone. The principal goes on the speaker and immeditates a message all throughout the school: “This is not a drill: Code Red. I repeat this is not a drill: Code Red.”. Gunshots are heard… 1,2,3, you think. A 19 year old, in the possession of an AR-15, self righteously murders 1,2,3,4,5 students and unfortunately 12 more. Panic strikes and students hide in closets, classrooms, bathrooms, and other locations that were available. You hear the utter screams and sobs of your classmates begging for their lives and desperately trying to resurrect their classmates, and teachers have been injured by bullet wounds. You look around to see glass shattered, blood splattered, and the throbbing pain that the sound of bullets introduce. 15 minutes felt like a decade and an hour felt like eternity. The doors busted with police officers and SWAT members. The day will leave a permanent scar engraved deep inside your heart.

Gun violence has reached its peak since the Parkland shooting. It took 17 children to die for politicians to come up with a new bill that won’t even come to the standards that we hope it would’ve reached. The Parkland shooting was just one of the many shootings that involved a military grade weapon. The Sandy Hook, Pulse, and Vegas shooting were all shootings that involved an assault weapon.

You’ve thought that politicians would’ve come up with an agreement on gun regulations after 20 KINDERGARTENERS were shot and killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza. Nothing. Or after the Gay Pulse Nightclub shooting were 50 people were killed and 53 were injured by Omar Mateen. Nothing. Maybe after 50+ innocent people were shot and 500 were injured during a country concert in Las Vegas by Stephen Paddock… Nothing. America’s system in itself is absolutely corrupted. How should a 19 year old, with mental disability go out and buy a MILITARY GRADE WEAPON? Mind you, you cannot get into a club or buy liquor legally at the age of 19. Gun Control is needed NOW.

We need the ban on assault weapons. Many arguments by the NRA, The National Rifle Association, have claimed that we “need” guns to further protect us from terrorism, home invasions, and other particular situations and the Second Amendment protects our guns under no circumstances. Yet, you do not need a AK-47 to protect yourself from burglars. And how about, the Second Amendment? The second amendment was created under the Bill of Rights to protect our gun rights from any governmental procedure. As using that point as an argument, most standpoints are invalid. Courtesy that the Second Amendment was passed in the 1700’s where the only “Guns”were muskets whom can shoot three rounds per minutes. Now in present day, we have bump stocks and automatic rifles that can shoot 17 round of ammo in under 30 seconds. It’s a big change of what they were fighting for 300 years ago. We need to interpret the Second Amendment differently in order to bypass the incredibly vacuous arguments brought from the NRA and other fellow Americans who absolutely LOVE their guns and not the lives of others.

That’s why I asking each and everyone of you to stand up for Gun Violence and presumed tighter Gun regulations. Yes, we are minors who much of Congress and the rest of America take into humour that we are incapable and immature to extend. But we are much more than that. Like mentioned, Congress has been failing America for its child-play to uphold tighter regulations. But our voice is louder than anyone’s else. Stand up and command for the ban of assault rifles and the bill of tighter gun laws. WE NEED CHANGE NOW & WE CAN STOP THIS.